2024 BMW iX5 Hydrogen Review | Weird science or sensible solution to carbon-free motoring?

At first glance this looks like just about any other 2024 BMW X5 large luxury SUV.
But it’s not - it’s a very rare, very expensive prototype fuel-cell electric vehicle (FCEV) called the BMW iX5 Hydrogen.
BMW brought two of them to Australia for testing as part of a global program that could one day result in a production model.
So let’s drive it and decide whether BMW is presenting us with a genuine alternative to battery-electric vehicles or simply heading up a blind alley.
👉 Full Review: www.carsales.com.au/editorial...
Fast Forward
00:00 Intro
00:40 What is an iX5?
01:10 Fuel cell hydrogen explained
02:45 Interior & passenger space
03:35 On the road
05:05 Verdict
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[@simonblack0014]

The infrastructure is there, they’re call service stations. We should be utilising surplus wind and solar to produce green hydrogen. Then life could go on without this wasting money putting chargers in, all over the country.

[@suhailansari1902]

Green Hydrogen is already cost competitive compared to petroleum fuel in India, Petrol costs more than 100₹/L and the average fuel economy of petrol cars is 14-20 km/L which means that it costs 7.14-5₹/km, now let's compare it to green Hydrogen, green Hydrogen manufacturing costs is 320-350₹/kg, it should be available to consumers for approximately 500₹/kg and a Fuel cell car like Toyota Mirai can hold at least 5.6kg of Hydrogen and it can run for 650km before needing a refill which means that fuel cell vehicles cost 4.30 rupees per km (500 rupees x 5.6 kg / 650 km). Fuel cell vehicles don't suffer from any kind of performance degradation in cold weather. Indian government has announced National Hydrogen Mission and Indian companies like Reliance, GAIL, L&T, Adani Enterprise etc are making big investments to bring green Hydrogen manufacturing cost down to less than 100₹/kg which means that in near future fuel cell vehicles will become even more cost-competitive compared to petroleum vehicles. However the cost of Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles is still high compared to petroleum vehicles, price of fuel cell vehicles will reduce when production will increase.

[@robg1176]

All credit to BMW who (along with Toyota and Hyundai) are thinking outside the lunacy of pure battery EV’s. If the infrastructure issue can be solved, here’s an alternate ICE future i can get excited about

[@Pilch9]

You have to be joking. BMW and Toyota are completely on a losing path with this dumb idea. The only benefactor is hydrogen producers which are probably the legacy oil and gas producers. There is zero benefit to this path.

[@waynehobbs5175]

In the USA I believe clean hydrogen has a pump price of AUD$15.00.
6kg therefore is $90 to do 500km.
BEVs instead can use the grid or solar that costs 8c/kWh and an 80kWh battery can do 500km for from $0 to $6.40 (8c rate).
Infrastructure only needs to be improved but not start from scratch with hydrogen.
I filled my EV from home last year for $250 which included about 1000km of public charging juice for over 15,000km.

[@brycedubois3023]

So, take electricity (that would otherwise charge an EV), valuable clean water, build an expensive electrolyser plant and generate some hydrogen. Compress it, store it, ship it and fill an FCEV with the result being, about 1/3 of the energy you started with will turn the wheels. At 3 - 5 times the cost. And that’s for ‘green’ hydrogen. The gas industry will, of course, happily supply steam reformed methane whilst generating 8kg of CO2 for every 1kg of ‘grey’ hydrogen produced. As for refilling time, it takes me about 10 seconds to refill my EV. At least that’s the extent of my involvement, conveniently at home or work. Sorry to add facts.

[@mirkozlikovski9553]

think of it this way.... the current technological state of the FCEV is where BEV was in 1994.... in other words, it works, but is not really usable in a practical sense.
but, if, IF there would be similar investments and break troughs in hydrogen and fuel cell technology as there was (and still is) in batteries development in last 25-30 years - for which basically, we have to thank laptops, mobile and smartphones and not EV's - FCEV might have far more sense than BEV has.... otherwise, FCEV is just a nice and theoretically true "zero emission cycle" technology....

[@gregwatling4041]

The infrastructure for hydrogen will never happen at least Tesla built their infrastructure and gave people a reason to buy their cars.